Trisquel includes 3 Mozilla-based browsers. Why not have a lightweight alternative?
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Icecat, Abrowser, and Firefox. All of them eat RAM, even if there are no add-ons installed. All support WebExtensions, which raise security issues. Icecat addons can't be removed, which makes no sense from a freedom perspective.
I used to use Iceweasel, a low-resource browser that has the advantages of Mozilla features without WebExtensions. I'd build it myself if I could figure out how.
I've tried a number of the lightweight browsers in the repo, and they all have serious usability problems, such as not supporting user stylesheets and not rendering the script I need. Some websites simply block them even though the page loads in Abrowser.
Actually hv3 may be to your liking. I originally was going to say links2, but it does not do css, I believe hv3 has better support.
Links2 was actually better than hv3. I can style the terminal window, so I don't really need a stylesheet for links2. I couldn't get hv3 to load most web pages I tried.
You could build Pale Moon without the trademarked name and icons, and call it Libre Moon or something like that. I've got a thread or two around here showing how to do that. Or you could do the same with building a free version of Basilisk and calling it IceWeasel - I think one or two of our forum members still do that.
Or you could use Falkon, which is completely libre. Unfortunately the only way to get an up-to-date version of Falkon is via Flathub, and people around here freak out if you hint that someone would want to run totally free software installed via Flatpak from Flathub because reasons.
Or you could just keep using the same couple of massively bloated Firefox forks or the massively bloated ungoogled-chromium. Whatever floats your boat. I use them all for different purposes.
Better off with flathub then snap though.
Snap is deeply corrupt if you use ubuntu's repo to work it.
I do hear that snap now can be used without their repo, but it still irks me due to their server being non-free and I would imagine many would still choose to use ubuntu's snap repo.
Palemoon-libre and if I am desperate waterfox via conty.sh are what I use currently. Although I suppose i could consider icecat instead of waterfox
I've never tried snap that I recall, and don't really know much about it, other than that it probably works in a similar way to flatpak. If you aren't a big Ubuntu fan, snap doesn't seem terribly relevant to anything.
I recall you used to, up until pretty recently, make your own version of Iceweasel out of the Basilisk code also, correct? On Hyperbola?
Reason I stopped is iceweasel-uxp's main dev hasn't been working on it for a while. And this means the user agents won't be updated way more often. Thus building a libre palemoon became a way better option.
So essentially, I stopped using it due to getting blocked so often on several websites.
Ahh, well it's good that you and I worked on that whole libre-Pale Moon for Hyperbola project when we did a few years ago I guess.
Could you post a current how-to in the General Free Software Talk forum showing your step-by-step process you are using to build it? I am interested to see how many things have changed for you.
Dillo (https://dillo-browser.org/release/3.2.0/) is a reasonably good web browser that is much easier on resources, compared to the big players. It has seen a good amount development since new maintainers took on the project.
Unfortunately, Trisquel (and I assume Ubuntu 24.04 as well) still ships ancient Dillo 3.0.5, which has none of the recent improvements, so building from source seems like the most reasonable approach. I have a copy of Dillo 3.2.0 on a floppy disk (!) the project leader gave away on FOSDEM2025 to show how small this browser really is.
Dillo has no js engine, so probably won't do much for the OP. Kind of a glorified graphical links2.
Netsurf at least has a rudimentary js engine, and will render a few websites that require js.
But these days, with all the Cloudflare gatekeeping all over the web, if you aren't using at least a libretized Pale Moon or libretized Basilisk or an extremely current webkit browser like the latest Falkon, you have very little chance to get much done online.
Actually I browse with js disabled.
Very good then, you should definitely try Dillo.
For the rest of us who do not have that luxury due to job/university/etc requirements, my post would still be relevant.
It is not a luxury. Please do not make assumptions about my life. The fact that some people have the option to earn a living via computers rather than toiling on a farm or something is a luxury.
I was speaking for myself - for me it would be a great luxury to never have had to ever use js to obtain required information from the internet for any job or any studies. I have also worked at several hard, manual labor jobs in my life, so don't assume that I am some kind of privileged knowledge worker.
The only thing I know about you is your own description of yourself, where you and I have a couple of things in common:
>"My interests are physics/natural philosophy, foreign languages, and science fiction.
Staying fit is also important.
I value open-mindedness, cosmopolitanism, truth, and nonattachment."
And I thought that the ideas you expressed in your thread "What is the libre software message to the average computer user?" were very important and on-point. But I'm also not bending over backwards trying to be your friend or anyone else's friend - if you don't like the random nonsense I write about here then feel free to ignore me.
May I state one detail on the initial post, Trisquel doesn't ship Firefox.
Yes it does. I have it installed on Trisquel right now.
This is what package firefox shows me with apt:
apt show firefox
Package: firefox
State: not a real package (virtual)
Notice: Can't select candidate version from package firefox as it has no candidate
Notice: Can't select versions from package 'firefox' as it is purely virtual
Notice: No packages found
If I try to install it gives me Abrowser.
Oh, weird. Maybe I got it from Debian and completely forgot. I don't know why Firefox shows up in apt for me.